Theory Lecture Week 5: Typography

In this seminar,  we talked about typography, not one of my main interests but I must say that the whole lecture was very interesting and gave me a new perspective typefaces and on typography as an art. 


We started, be first giving some brief definitions. 

Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point size, line length, line-spacing (leading), letter-spacing (tracking), and adjusting the space within letters pairs (kerning).

To publishers and others concerned with presenting words to the public, in print or screen, ‘typography’ means the process of making the words visually attractive and effective; and typographer is someone who is professionally trained to perform that task, and earns a living from doing so.
 Walter Tracy (1988) The Typographic Scene, p.11

The function of typography is to communicate a message so that it effectively conveys both its intellectual meaning and its emotional feeling. 

Willie Kunz (1998) Macro and Micro Typography

As a beginner in this field, I started to wonder what is in fact bad typography? how can you define it when there are so many approaches to it. For some typefaces should be an art , as an example take a look at this amazing work made from paper designed by Yulia Brodskaya

 

Yulia Brodskaya  is a Russian artist and illustrator known for her handmade elegant and detailed paper illustrations. Now, she is based in the UK from  2004 .

 Prior to moving to the UK, Yulia Brodskaya became interested in diverse creative practices, ranging from Textile Painting, Origami and Collage, to more traditional Fine Art practices. Soon after her arrival to the UK, Brodskaya started working as freelance graphic designer, while studying for the master's degree in Graphic communication, but she very quickly switched to the illustration field. However, the graphic design background has an influence on her art work as most of the pieces have a strong typographic focus.

Much of Brodskaya’s work uses an old technique called Quilling, in which ribbons of paper are used to create intricate designs; however she takes it to an entirely new level. She has swiftly earned an international reputation for her innovative paper illustrations and was named the ‘breakthrough star’ of the 2009 by Creative review magazine (Dec 2009, p32). Her work for g2 (The Guardian) has been included in D & AD Annual 200. To describe her craft works Yulia uses the term ‘papergrafics’.

 Terminology

Back to our lecture, we continue with terminology.Often we confuse font with typeface, the difference is that fonts is what you use, and typeface is what you see. 

Norbert Florendo 2008 The physical embodiment of a collection of letters, numbers, symbols, etc. (whether it’s a case of metal pieces or a computer file) is a font. When referring to the design of the collection (the way it looks) you call it a typeface. 

I feel like I have a predominant visual memory so in order to memorise something I often use sketches or pictures, in this case, rather than describing all the terminology I made a quick search for some explanatory photos, here are some of them:

Next, we went thru the history of Typography starting from the old biblical inscription to the modern days. It will take hours to pay attention to each stage and how it evolved in different cultures so I choose a few examples that caught my attention.

The History of Typography

The Arts and Craas movement:William Morris The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer

The textile designer, author and artist founded the Kelmscott Press in 1891. Morris (1834-1896) published his own work as well as translations and reprints of mediaeval writing he believed should be read. He was a dedicated  traditionalist and   wanted to preserve the relationship between art and books. He detested the mechanisation of art during a period when the western world was embracing mechanisation.

Morris was a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, an organization that strived to produce art reminiscent of the romantic, medieval eras.  These ideals were instrumental in everything that Morris did from the initiation of the Arts and Crafts movement in late 19th century England, the design and decoration of his famous Red House,  his design and manufacture of textiles and, of course, the Kelmscott Press.

Kelmscott Press was founded in a cottage where Morris set up three printing presses that he used to print books by traditional methods.  To maintain the traditional feel, Morris designed two typefaces based on 15th century fonts.  He also made his own paper to complete his handmade books.  Despite the painstaking effort put into each publication and the fact that Kelmscott was only in operation for seven years, the small press managed to produce more than 18,000 copies of more than 50 different works. 

 Kelmscott's finest achievement is probably its edition of Works of Geoffrey Chaucer.  The books were designed by Morris himself and illustrated by fellow Pre-Raphaelite Edward Burne-Jones. It was the finest and most beautiful book of its day, containing 87 woodcut illustrations to accompany Chaucer’s masterful tales.

Twentieth century typefaces

Edward Johnston (1916) Railway Type

Johnston (or Johnston Sans) is a sans-serif typeface designed by and named after Edward Johnston. The typeface was commissioned in 1913 by Frank Pick, Commercial Manager of the Underground Electric Railways Company of London, as part of his plan to strengthen the company's corporate identity.

It has been the corporate font of public transport in London since the foundation of the London Passenger Transport Boardin 1933, and of predecessor companies since its introduction in 1916, making its use one of the world's longest-lasting examples of corporate branding. It remains a copyrighted property of the LPTB's successor, Transport for London.

Johnston's work originated the genre of the humanist sans-serif typeface, typefaces that are sans-serif but take inspiration from traditional serif fonts and Roman inscriptions. 

Adolphe Mouron Cassandre  

 Bifur, 1927

 Peignot, 1937 

Jonathan Barnbrook, Arsenale 2012 for the first   Kiev Biennale and Art Arsenal

I personally love this work, it is so inspiring and bold, like some modern hieroglyphs.

Arsenale 2012, The First Kiev Biennale of Contemporary Art launched at the Mystetskyi Arsenal, Kiev’s new National Culttural Art and Museum complex which incorporates an old arsenal building of national cultural importance, hence the name which translates as Art Arsenal.The festival theme was – The Best of Times, The Worst of Times, Rebirth and Apocalypse in Contemporary Art – and it comprises the work of around 100 artists which is organised around four hub ideas which are titled thus: The Restless Spirit, In the Name of Order, Flesh, and The Unquiet Dream. 

 As well as the identity for Arsenale 2012, Barnbrook has developed “a visual language system” for the festival’s first discussion platform, entitled Art After the End of the World. “The design draws inspiration from the notion of a dialogue,” says Barnbrook, “multiple points of view overlapping and engaging with one another. The aesthetic acknowledges recent protests and uprisings that saw people utilise technology to unite and overthrow dominant systems of power.”



Full article at: https://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2012/may/barnbrook-designs-identity-for-kievs-arsenale-2012/

Karloff, convergence of beauty and ugliness

https://www.typotheque.com/blog/beauty_and_ug

liness

''I don’t think that type should be expressive at all. I can write the word ‘dog’ with any typeface and it doesn’t have to look like a dog. But there are people that [think that] when they write ‘dog’ it should bark.

” Massimo Vignelli “(in the documentary Helvetica)

This is a very interesting and even obvious statement but it illustrates one of the traps that we fall in as designers. We want our logos and typography to match the meaning on the word, even to illustrate it but at least in my opinion, this is just a restriction that we impose ourselves. However, words can be used as an image but is vital to think out of the box, making a clock from the letter ''O'' in the word ''clock'' in not that original but can be very interesting if we add that in a context.

Word as an image

             

Design to which we are not accustomed and which persists in drawing attention to itself can often turn us from readers into lookers and when we switch from subconscious to conscious action start looking rather than reading, we go back to seeing type and typography.

 Bernard Unger (2007) While You’re Reading p.134

Performing words

Filippo Tommaso Marine (1915) Words in Freedom

Words in Freedom is definitely not on my taste but the concept of using letters for something else that words is intriguing, Flippo transformed the letters not just in images as in -word as image- but in a state, be just looking at the cover we can feel the movement. Is an abstract illustration of the poem.

The “Manifesto of Futurism,” written by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and published on the front page of the French newspaper Le Figaro on February 20, 1909, proclaimed the burning desire of the author and his fellow Futurists to abandon the past and embrace the future. Tired of Italy’s reliance on its classical heritage and disdainful of the present, these artists called for a new aesthetic language based on industry, war, and the machine. In addition to their prolific output of drawings, photographs, films, performances, and paintings and sculptures (examples of which are on view in the fifth-floor Painting and Sculpture galleries), the Futurists (1909–1944) published countless manifestos, leaflets, and art and poetry periodical

Dan Friedman Weather Reports from ‘Radical Modernism

http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/le-souffleur/